Right of Succession
Chapter Two-Leadership Duel.
Starscream quickly thought through his limited options – which were either fight, or call off the duel – and found that if he wanted to keep his chance at the leadership – and save face – he was going to have to go ahead with the fight. There was no way he could get out of duelling without losing his coveted leadership of the Decepticon army, and losing any respect some of those who hadn't decided still had for him. If he capitulated or tried to get out of it now, even his trine-mates might refuse to follow him.
There was no easy way out of this.
As Starscream flexed his claws and tensed, he decided he had to hope that Sam's lack of familiarity with his Cybertronian body would give him the edge. Power was one thing, but experience could overcome power, right? Starscream had no idea how long Sam had been in his new body, but it couldn't be for more than four or five orns, whereas Starscream had fought and lived in his for hundreds of vorns.
The Decepticons had spread out, to form the customary duel-circle around them both, and Starscream looked uneasily at the former human whom he now had to battle if he wanted to retain his leadership. Sam seemed altogether too relaxed for Starscream's liking. Either he was complacent about his abilities and underestimating Starscream – which would be to Starscream's advantage – or he knew something that Starscream did not, and it was this second possibility which was bothering Starscream.
"DUEL-CONTINUES-TILL-ONE-COMBATANT-YEILDS-OR-DIES." intoned Soundwave. "NO-RESTRICTIONS-ON-WEAPONS-OR-METHOD."
As Sam shifted to a battle-ready position, so did Starscream. As Soundwave nodded, Starscream sprang for his opponent, hoping to catch him unprepared. However, the claws he was using to slash missed their mark as his opponent moved with a speed Starscream was not expecting, considering his size. As Sam lashed out, Starscream only just managed to dodge, but even then he felt the long clawed fingers scrape painfully along his arm. He lunged for Sam again, hoping to get him while he was off-balance but once again Sam had moved too quickly for him, and it was he who was off-balance as Sam lunged, not slashing or grabbing but slamming into him. Starscream overbalanced and landed on his back, and Sam immediately pounced, both hands grabbing for Starscream's shoulders.
Starscream's shape did not make for rolling or turning, and Sam easily used his own bulk to hold Starscream down, slamming his hands down on Starscream's big wings and pushing down. Starscream winced and cried out a little: his wings were very sensitive, and that had hurt. Starscream, like all fliers, felt uncomfortably vulnerable on his back, and he brought his firing-arm up to shoot at Sam, but Sam saw it coming, and rolled off Starscream to one side.
Starscream shot at Sam, who rolled and dodged and got back to his feet, and Starscream used the time he had been given to roll to his own feet and take off, converting to jet form and then wheeling round in the air to bring his weapons to bear on where Sam had been.
Except that Sam was not where he had been before, in fact Sam had converted to the sleek Cybertronian jet form that Megatron had favoured and Sam had obviously been gifted with by the AllSpark. Starscream inwardly smiled: no-one could match him in the air, to his knowledge. Not that he'd ever raced or fought Megatron, but none of his trine were as swift or manoeuvrable as he, and Sam surely could not be used to flying and fighting in his new form?
Starscream soon found that this assumption was in error: he didn't know if Sam had inherited Megatron's knowledge of ariel combat and manoeuvres by accident, or if the AllSpark had given him an instinctive knowledge, but Sam seemed as in control and quick as he had been on the ground. Sam and Starscream spun and wheeled in the air, firing their weapons at each other, trying to fire at the other while dodging their weapons. The Decepticons and humans on the ground – for few people in Tranquility could have failed to notice the two battling fliers, or not be woken by the sound of their engines and weapons fire – watched the strangely beautiful but deadly dance the two wove around each other in the sky.
To Starscream's horror, Sam seemed more agile in the air than he had assumed: he was working flat-out to keep up with him, and had no time to work out a strategy to foil Sam's flying-pattern, in fact there seemed to BE no pattern that Starscream could discern, and it was Sam's unpredictability, coupled with Sam's speed and grace in the air, that was the problem.
Starscream felt one of Sam's shots wing him, and tumbled to the ground, converting to robot form on the way. Sam followed suit, diving for the wounded Seeker, bearing him down to the ground on his back again, but grabbing his weapons arm and shoving it under Starscream's own body before pinning him down painfully.
"Do you yield, or do I need to persuade you some more, Starscream?" snarled Sam. Sam was usually mild-mannered, but Starscream's threat to his friends in Tranquility had Sam riled. Starscream looked up with a mixture of fear, anger, and defiance in his optics.
"I don't yield to former fleshies who have been lucky! He said, struggling.
"Then I will have to beat you into submission." Sam stated. He shifted position so he was straddling Starscream's hips, and sat back, drawing back his fist, and as Starscream tried to use the release of his shoulders to his advantage, Sam brought his fist back down with considerable force on Starscream's cockpit.
Starscream let out an agonised, horrendous shriek, red optics opening wide in terror and pain, as the fist impacted with his cockpit, which shattered. Sam cried out too – he had not realised his own strength, had not meant to strike Starscream so hard - but was unable to stop his fist driving deep into Starscream's internals. Starscream let out another pained shriek, joined by a keen from his wingmates, as Sam quickly drew his fist out – an action that was quickly followed by a blinding white flash as Starscream's Spark fled a body that could no longer sustain it.
Sam had seen the situation before, when Jazz had been killed by Megatron, even though he had been running with the Cube, there was no way he could have missed the bright flare of Jazz's escaping Spark.
"No!" he whispered, as Starscream's optics faded to darkness and the tension ebbed out of the body, causing it to settle. He looked up as the keening of Skywarp and Thundercracker ebbed a little: he saw the two other Seekers holding each other's forearms, foreheads touching as they tried to comfort each other.
"DUEL-IS-ENDED." This was Soundwave, who came over to Sam. "SAM-IS-NEW-DECEPTICON-LEADER."
"Well, he can't be called 'Sam' anymore." stated Barricade, also walking over. "What sort of name is that? May I suggest Starkiller?"
There was a murmur of agreement from the other Decepticons that Sam, numb with shock, barely noticed as he stood up.
"What about Deathblow?" suggested Dead End. There was another murmer of agreement from the others. Even the two Seekers looked up long enough to nod before returning to their private grief.
"But…I didn't want to….I didn't mean to…not to kill him." Sam said in disbelief, still staring at Starscream's ruined body. He stooped again, reaching out a hand to the optics, but there were only shutters that were beyond his reach, not eyelids as there was on humans. How could he show some sort of respect to his dead opponent? Moving his hand down, he spread his fingers over the hole in Starscream's chest.
"You fought well, I'm sorry, I did not mean to kill." He whispered. "I wish I had not hit you so hard."
The sound of metal moving and the crackle of energy startled him, Beneath his hand, blue AllSpark energy danced, and metal was untwisting, re-forming, and new metal was replacing anything that was totally destroyed. A white glow, seeming to coalesce from the atmosphere, was gathering under his palm, and somehow Sam knew that this was Starscream's Spark, being re-formed from the same one they had thought lost, that had dissipated into the air earlier.
There was silence from the Decepticons as this happened, the two Seekers still holding each other as they watched, Barricade and Soundwave watching expressionlessly. The Spark under Sam's hand brightened and grew stronger, than abruptly dived into Starscream's chest as metal formed and flowed to seal the hole in Starscream's chest, and as Sam drew his hand back, as stunned as the rest of them, a new cockpit was spun from the blue light to replace the one that lay in splinters on the ground.
Starscream jerked once, his optics brightening and a moan escaped his vocaliser: Sam noticed that not all the damage he had inflicted had been healed. The two other seekers gasped, and both ran over, grabbing onto Starscream's hands and stroking his face and chest while clicking and humming what must have been reassurances as him.
A few moments later, Starscream was dazedly being helped to his feet. As he came to stand in front of Sam, Sam tensed: was he going to have to fight him again?
"I told you earlier I would not yield to a former fleshy who got lucky." He stated. "However, you are more than that. You are now a Cybertronian. You are now the new Decepticon leader, and…..you are also, it seems, the AllSpark. You have earned the respect of the other Decepticons plus the gratitude of my wing-brothers and I.
Starscream did not exactly bow, but his knees bent and his head tipped forwards.
"To you, Sparkhands, I will yield."
Just as Sam was getting over that surprise, Soundwave spoke.
"ORDERS,-LEADER-SPARKHAND?" he asked, which brought Sam back to what he had NOT been told about winning this duel. That it would earn him a new name…..and make him the Decepticon's leader.
"Um……go somewhere isolated, make a base, and wait for me. I need some time alone to think." He said, wondering just what he could do about this, whether he could get out of it, and whether he should.
A/N: Sorry that Starscream is out of character at the end.Methinks the AllSpark energy mended his processor some too….plus he's scared of Sam now….and in awe that he is technically the AllSpark….
So, do I leave it at that and mark it as complete, or do I carry on with it?